The name BIG Live doesn’t exactly scream ballet but that’s what the organisation does. BIG stands for Ballet International Gala, the arena in which BIG Live started operations in 2022. There were some pandemic-related bumps but the idea proved durable. The galas featured a formidable line-up of dancers for the first and subsequent presentations and there’s another gala coming up in August to be staged in Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra.

With northern hemisphere ballet companies on their summer break, many headline dancers are delighted to travel for gala duty – careers are short; they need to make hay – and there seems to be a vast appetite on the part of audiences to see them alongside Australian stars.

With the galas now established Brisbane-based BIG Live has extended its reach into full-length ballets featuring young local freelance dancers, seeing them as a valuable and under-used resource. These dancers have done the training but are not at present attached to one of our big three ballet companies. BIG Live wants to get these dancers on stage.

It’s a courageous move in these tricky post-Covid days but there are opportunities out there for a nimble outfit.

BIG Live’s handful of shows mightn’t look like much at this stage but there is a gap in the traffic ready for someone to slide into. The pandemic and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have ended the Russian (or kind-of Russian) tours that used to take the big titles – Swan Lake, Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty – the length and breadth of Australia. The companies would appear in any theatre they could get in the big cities but were equally available for one- and two-night stands in regional centres rarely served in this way by our major ballet companies. 

BIG Live appears keen to pick up some of the slack. 

It dipped its toes in the water last year with The Nutcracker and will bring that back this year for 10 performances in four States. Romeo and Juliet is a rather quieter affair with a total of five performances in three cities. I went to the sole Newcastle date on June 1.

It’s a modest production, as one might expect from a fledgling outfit backed by a small number of sponsors and philanthropists. Choreographed by Joel Burke, Romeo and Juliet is made for 20 dancers and a handful of supernumeraries who perform on a simple set clearly designed for ease of touring. There’s a balcony for Juliet to one side, some columns to the other, a bed for Juliet’s chamber as needed and a backcloth dominated by a large mountain that doesn’t immediately summon thoughts of fair Verona.     

The look may not be sumptuous but serves Burke’s conventional take on the story well enough. As do most R&J choreographers, Burke went to Prokofiev for the score (here heard recorded), using it as a template but condensing it significantly as he stripped the scenario to its essentials. 

Burke gave himself a huge challenge, and not just in the areas of dance-making and dramaturgy. They would be enough to tackle but Burke also dances Romeo. And he is BIG Live’s co-founder and artistic director. And he’s only 24.

Taking all that into account it’s a marvel he got the show on stage at all. It also has to be said that the concentration of all these roles in one pair of hands hasn’t led to unqualified success across the board. (Burke is also listed in the program, with others, as being responsible for set design.)

Burke doesn’t yet have an individual voice as a choreographer but the dances were serviceable. A more experienced hand would have relied less on repetitions of standard – albeit bravura – steps for the men and too often you could see the preparation for a move rather than a seamless transition from one thought to another. On the other hand, the dance for Juliet’s friends as they prepare for her wedding to Paris had delicacy and charm.

Despite the limited forces available to enact the Montague-Capulet feud the sword fight in the second act was a highlight: fast, urgent and believable. It was a pity that Tybalt (Noah Cosgriff) was envisaged as a one-note villain whose status as the baddie was emphasised by an unsubtle switch to red lighting and the recklessness that makes Mercutio (sparky William Cheung) so attractive was insufficiently established from the start.

So, swings and roundabouts. Tchaikovsky’s lovely Romeo and Juliet (Fantasy Overture) was interpolated into the score for the Act I ballroom scene to good effect, for instance, but was there only so Burke could use the Dance of the Knights music earlier for a face-off scene between Montagues and Capulets. The deliberate, majestic, rolling music speaks of power; it’s far less descriptive of anger at boiling point.

It was good to see Emilia Bignami as a Juliet with some fire in her belly, even if the interpretation overall was a little restrained (as was that of Burke’s Romeo). The two weren’t helped by a swift conclusion that gave the tragedy little time to make itself felt. This was a Romeo and Juliet that certainly told the story but failed to reach the heart, although it would be unfair if I didn’t mention that the Newcastle audience greeted the company warmly at the curtain call.

BIG Live’s sponsors include an airline that was thanked in a pre-show announcement in Newcastle. Oddly, no mention was made of the dancers who would dance Tybalt and Juliet that night. Those roles were double cast, with international guest artist Sebastián Vinet appearing as Tybalt only on the Gold Coast (May 17 and 18) as a trawl through his Instagram account revealed. By the process of elimination 19-year-old Cosgriff was Newcastle’s Tybalt. His dynamism will stand him in good stead when he joins Birmingham Royal Ballet in September.

Bignami, who danced with an attractive balance of poise and freedom, was able to be identified from her program photograph. 

BIG Live presents itself and its operations with a great deal of vigorous hyperbole and is – justly – proud of the international artists it has brought to Australia. It seems a big oversight not to show the same enthusiasm for the emerging local talent appearing under its banner. 

Burke’s enthusiasm and ambition appear to be boundless and he is testing himself in all sorts of ways that should bear fruit in the future. There is really far too much work, though, for one set of young shoulders to bear. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for the creative circle to be widened.

Romeo and Juliet concludes its season in Sydney at Chatswood’s Concourse on June 14 and 15.